The fourth season of Vietnam Idol aired on August 17, 2012. This year sees some major changes in the show's structure. Mỹ Tâm joins the judging panel as the replacement for Siu Black while Quốc Trung and Nguyễn Quang Dũng remains on the panel. Huy Khánh takes over as the host for this season. This season will follow the same format as American Idol season 11. Vietnam Idol used the new title screen and logo with a different font started from Spectacular round.
The winner will receive: 600 million VND in cash ($30,000), 1-year promotion on MTV Vietnam as well as support for making a music video from the channel.[1]
Auditions started on July 4, 2012 in Da Nang and took place in several cities and towns in Vietnam; however, there was only 60 golden tickets given out during the auditions.[1]
Top 60 contestants were chosen to advance to the Theater round in Ho Chi Minh City. After the first elimination, 32 contestants remained and were divided into 8 groups. The judges picked out the top 16, including 8 girls and 8 boys for the semi-final.
Semifinals round began on September 14, consisting of two nights. In first round for boys, two were chosen by judges and two were saved through public votes. The lowest public-voted of the remaining four were automatically out and the rest sang off in order to get a wild card to final rounds. The second round for girls was on September 21 with the same rules.
The finals began two weeks after the semi-finals had concluded.
Each week the finalists perform live on stage to a television audience. The contestant receiving the least viewers' votes is eliminated from the competition. Introduced for the second time is the ability of the judges to collectively override the voters' decision once, if they deem that a contestant has been voted-out prematurely. However, this results in the elimination of two contestants in the following week instead of one.
The grand finale took place in Quân khu 7 Stadium. 2,500 tickets out of over 25,000 were invitational; therefore, some tickets left were scalped up to 500,000 to 700,000 VND each. The show started at 8 pm (local time) and were broadcast live on VTV3. Mỹ Linh, previously mentors on the show, performed with the two finalists – Hoàng Quyên and Ya Suy. The show's judge Mỹ Tâm performed together with Ya Suy. Huy Tuấn, Mỹ Tâm, Huy Khánh announced the winner of the season was Ya Suy from Lâm Đồng. Suy then performed the winning song Giây phút khát khao.
